Menu Icon
Refresh Miami Logo
Search Icon
Sign Up Sign In

It wasn’t all art, it wasn’t all conferences – Art Week gets personal with experiences, too

Nancy Dahlberg
Nancy Dahlberg
PinLinkedIn

By Jose Sirven, Riley Kaminer and Nancy Dahlberg

The TechBasel side of Art Week brought experiences and pitching opportunities, and offered a chance to invite visiting founders and investors into our ecosystem.  Here are a few events around town our team checked out. See the end of this story for more stories.

Upstream’s 1st DAO-athon brings out compelling ideas – and a winner!

Ever wanted to learn how to launch your own DAO? Upstream, a venture-backed startup that offers a DAO-in-a-box solution for communities, hosted their first-ever DOA-a-thon during Art Basel week. Housed at the Poppin Office in the heart of Wynwood, participants had 4 hours to build and present a DAO concept to a panel of judges. Experts including Web3 lawyer Laura Cole and the Miami founder of Upstream and Truth Labs, Alex Taub, were on hand to help.

Despite the current market, enthusiasm was high. The room stayed full of people in energy. Attendees represented a variety of skills and experiences — from senior web3 engineers to artists, designers, community managers, and even a doctor. “The state of the market didn’t deter these builders from coming to this competition with enthusiasm, grit, and solid ideas for compelling projects. It was cool to educate them on potential legal barriers and watch them innovate paths forward,” said Cole.

Crypto lawyer Laura Cole chats with DAO-a-thon participants. Photo by Jordon Mitchell

The Grateful DAO [pictured at top of post], a community that promotes mental health with an accompanying Giraffe NFT, took first place and the $10k prize. Other notable DAO’s included CellarDAO, a decentralized wine distributor, and DoctorsDAO. – Jose Sirven

At top of post: The Grateful DAO team poses with Alex Taub, Upstream Founder, and DAO-a-thon judges after winning the grand prize during the first DAO-a-thon. Photo by Jordan Mitchell.

Miami Hack Week presents Web3 Demo Day – and the big event is in January

You could not avoid the cryptos events around every corner of Wynwood, Miami Beach and Downtown—festival-sized parties, exclusive speakeasy’s and happy hours with top investors. The energy was no different at Miami Hack Week’s Web3 Demo Day hosted at the new Solana Spaces. Over 600 attendees RSVP’ed. 5 startups were given the opportunity to present to a panel of seasoned entrepreneur investors for a chance at a $10,000 grand prize.

Kazm CEO and Founder Ben Turtel presents a winning pitch during the Web3 Demo Day hosted by Miami Hack Week with Solana Spaces. Picture courtesy of Jordan Mitchell)

Ja’dan Johnson, founder of Miami Hack Week kicked off the day announcing that registration for the 3rd iteration of Miami Hack Week (January 29th – February 4th, 2023) would open in early December. Many in attendance were past hack week hackers, including those pitching.

Kazm took home the grand prize. Their CRM product combines data from wallets, discord, telegram, and other channels typically used by the web3 community so community managers can easily understand and target their users. The judges included Vibhu Norby (Founder and CEO of Solana Spaces), Bruno Faviero (Founder of Magna Tokens), Jon Wong (Solana Foundation), and Web3 Investor Sallie Jian (SAP). Carpool was announced as the runner-up.

Aside from the 5 main presentations, founders in the audience were given an opportunity to present their pitches. Crossmint — an NFT minting solution, who got their start at Miami Hack Week, has now grown to a team of over 40 — presented along with Archaic, an app for artists to turn their work into an NFT using their phone. For Archaic Founder Donnell Perkins, Web3 Demo Day gave him the chance to pitch for the first time. “This event offered an amazing opportunity for Archaic to debut our product in the heart of the Miami Web3 scene,” said Perkins. He credits Miami Hack Week for getting his start in NFT’s and is looking forward to January’s hack week. – Jose Sirven

Black Founders Demo Day comes to town

Twelve founders from around the country – a third of them from Florida — showcased their businesses at Black Founders Demo Day Miami and pitched onstage to a panel of VCs. In the event produced by Plain Sight, the selected companies represented SaaS, entertainment, fintech and transportation. The Florida companies were:

  • Wisdom App, a Miami-based next-generation social audio app, rated with 4.8 starts on the App Store; 
  • Laundr, a Gainesville and Miami-based on-demand laundry service;
  • Allison, a Tampa-based fintech that facilitates cross-border payments with an innovative business model; and
  • Airyvl, a Tampa-based aviation technology company providing critical analytics to the industry.

Also, a presenting company that has Miami ties was REC, a Philadelphia-based creative agency and incubator that is building a creative hub in Little Haiti with Diddy. The other presenting companies were: Seren; Athlytic; Opnr; Duke.AI; Freeman Capital; PlugZen;  and Just Her Rideshare. Attendees could invest via Wefunder during the event.

The event presented a chance to celebrate Black entrepreneurship, and included a fireside chat featuring Inc. Magazine’s Teneshia Carr, Ted Lucas, CEO and Founder of Slip N Slide Records and co-founder of Miami NFT Week, and Erick Gavin, Executive Director of Venture Miami, who discussed the power of NFTs and support for underrepresented founders. Gavin said that while it should be easier to get in front of funders in Miami because it is an early ecosystem, the accessibility of key entrepreneurial resources could be improved. That’s why Venture Miami is working on making it easier for founders to seek out resources with clear infrastructure in place.

That is also a reason Lucas funded an innovation tech lab at Florida Memorial University, South Florida’s only HBCU, that opens in January. “My goal is to give back,” Lucas said. “We are going to put tech hubs all over inner cities,” Lucas added, giving a shoutout to the Center of Black Innovation in Overtown.  – Nancy Dahlberg

FilmGate explores the intersection of film and tech

The line between fine art and technology is increasingly blurry. And Miami art institutions – Oolite Arts being the most recent example – are doubling down on arming creatives with the tech tools they need to create 21st century art.

Another prominent example of this phenomenon was the 9th FilmGate Interactive Media Festival. Taking place across four venues in Downtown and South Beach, the expo explored the intersection of film and technology. 

At the core of the event were some interactive installations at the Downtown Media Center – a converted office complex on SE 1st Street. There, we were able to don a Meta Quest and experience an immersive Korean film. Other notable experiences included Press W to Move Forward, a 5-minute experimental horror game exploring the ideas of progress, control, and societal pressure.

On Saturday, Microsoft sponsored six and a half hours worth of tech talks at the Frost Museum of Science. Representatives from Microsoft, MDC’s MAGIC program, Magic Leap, and the Tech Education Foundation discussed XR (extended reality) in the classroom. Meanwhile, three ad agencies, Coachella organizers, and Apple representatives debated “how NOT to build a metaverse.” – Riley Kaminer

Endeavor Miami steps out with several events

Art Week was also a chance to share accomplishments and celebrate wins. Endeavor Miami, a chapter of the global entrepreneurship organization that launched in South Florida in 2013,  wrapped up its EndeavorLAB cohort of female-led companies with a closing event. During this time, they had the chance to pitch their companies to Carolyn Groobey, Lead Independent Director at VHB; Kat Wilson, Managing Director of Miami Angels; and Juha Mikkola, Founder of Usko Privacy. The  EndeavorLAB startups were: Binibi, Chefpost, ClearCloser, Journey, Nala, Ola
People Clerk, Pivot and Redress.

The next day Endeavor hosted ART IN MOTION, powered by Blackdove and Dell for Startups and hosted at Blackdove’s gallery for digital motion art in Wynwood, to celebrate the convergence of art, entrepreneurship and technology. In the gallery created by Blackdove Founder and #MiamiTech entrepreneur Marc Billings and surrounded by art, Endeavor brought together its network of founders, partners and key players to raise a glass to the future. The gallery opened earlier this year. – Nancy Dahlberg

Photos provided by Endeavor Miami

READ MORE TECHBASEL COVERAGE ON REFRESH MIAMI:

Nancy Dahlberg
Latest posts by Nancy Dahlberg (see all)